Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman recommended that the courts deny the Menendez brothers’ habeas petition on Friday, claiming that new evidence presented by the convicted brothers “could be part of a continuum of lies.”
The DA specifically noted in a press conference Friday that the new evidence presented by the Menendez brothers’ council, a 1988 letter from Erik Menendez to his cousin Andy Cano, is not timely in the new trial, declaring it inadmissible in court.
“To say that this letter was not discovered until after the trial, as it’s been alleged in the defense papers, we believe, is just wrong,” Hochman said.
The letter was first introduced in a 2015 Barbara Walters interview, but it was not filed as new evidence for trial until May 2023.
“The notion that this letter could be part of a continuum of lies and deceit and fabricating stories required us to go back into the history of the Menendez case to analyze whether or not that would be true,” Hochman added.
Hochman went on to detail how the brothers told five different versions of the motivations for the two murders that occurred on August 20, 1989: a mafia attack, their father Jose Menendez raped Lyle’s girlfriend, their mother Kitty was molested by Jose, the two brothers were molested by their father and finally self-defense claiming that their mother and father were trying to kill them.
The district attorney also noted that the brothers had an alibi that they followed through on the night of the murders, they picked up the shells and disposed of their clothes to cover their tracks. He argued that in the original case it was the job of the jury to determine if the killing of Jose and Kitty Menendez was premeditated or self defense, not to determine whether they were sexually abused by their father.
Hochman specifically returned to the new evidence proposed in the 1988 letter to Erik’s cousin, noting that the “supposed letter” would have been relevant to the Menendez brothers’ council when they initially testified.
“We believe it’s inconceivable, as we’ve argued in our papers, and defies common sense, that if they had evidence that would show that sexual abuse had been communicated not just six years before the events, but nine months before the 1989 killings, that it would absolutely have come out during one or both of their testimonies,” Hochman said.
“Sexual abuse is abhorrent, and we will prosecute sexual abuse in any form it comes. But sexual abuse, in this situation, while it may have been a motivation for Eric and Lyle to do what they did, does not constitute self defense,” he concluded.
The Menendez case is on three parallel tracks, Hochman explained. His team has made their recommendation to the courts on the habeas track that takes new evidence into account. The district attorney explained that California Gov. Gavin Newsom has clemency power to release them if he so chooses, a power he has had since he took office in 2019. The last option for the brothers is resentencing. The DA noted that they have not made a final decision on resentencing, yet.
The district attorney’s office has created a 16-minute video giving a thorough history of the anatomy of the Menendez brothers’ case to educate people on the criminal justice system. That video is available on the DA’s website, and it breaks down the three decades worth of legal action that has taken place in the high-profile murder trial.